Monthly Archives: January 2012

I’ve been too busy to finish this because I have been helping somebody with some complex eventing, but it has been good for me because I learned how to use some more scripts in fun and interesting ways. But here’s the library tileset I’ve been trying to finish.

If you’ll notice a lot of the bookshelves have really similar patterns and I wanted to vary that up a bit, but that takes a while also I think a couple are the RTP bookshelves and I intend to change that, plus I wanted to have an alternate color for the bookshelves that would go next to the others.

The books on the bottom should all be good. One of the problems with recoloring the books using GIMP is that the open pages get all screwed up.

So I had to create this template to overlay on the open pages you can use this if you want to make your own colors and want to fix the pages with less hassle.

Also a look at cool stuff for RPG Maker VX ACE from other great blogs:

Kread-Ex made a script from an idea I posted (Thank you), it is called Skill Decay. Remember in Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater how you would get less points for using the same trick over and over again, well this is the RPG equivalent for skills. Force your players to use all of their fire skills on the weak against fire enemy instead of just one. If applied the right way this can add depth to a game. If can also be abused by people who are just lazy about design and don’t want people to skill spam (note: don’t be a lazy game designer or I’ll cut you).

Archeia Nessiah made some more wonderful portraits that match the RTP. This time it is More Terrence Stuff! If you have never been to Division Heaven, spend some time browsing the blog because you are almost guaranteed to find something useful to you here.

Yanfly once again has new script. This time the posted script is Ace Status Menu. Check it out, it has a lot of customization options which makes me happy. The total number of scripts available has now exceeded 100 and most are very useful. I’ll probably end up using a ton of them.

Yami released his/ her Charge Turn Battle is out. I’ve been waiting for this one. If you can test it out and report the bugs so this can be ready for the full version of Ace.

And last, but certainly not least, is Victor Sant who has just released his beta test for Animated Battle. This is one of those scripts that I should avoid because I will end up spending months tweaking everything to make a really cool looking and then lose all my interest with my project. All his scripts are pretty darn nifty too, check them out.

This is the Common Event you would need to set up to make the Bronze Lance. Notice I call the shop Common Event at the end to return the player to the shop after the purchase is completed and/ or update the variables. Of course you would want to do some sounds, events (like have the guy go over to the anvil and pound away or something then come back), and/ or animations before returning to the shop otherwise it would be pointless to use the <exit shop> tag

This the Common Event you would set up to call the shop so that it will update the variables correctly.

This is how to set up the event which calls the shop and how I set up the variables. You don’t need to use the Variables condition, I just had that selected so I could put the variable window in the same image.

This is what all this hard work ends up looking like in the Shop itself. In the right hand window it shows the player how much of each of the ingredients, that are needed, that the player currently has. The icon for the bronze lance doesn’t really match, but I didn’t have a bronze lance icon to use.

The common events could then be copied and pasted then modified for each item you wanted to create with minor changes. Don’t forget to add the additional variables if used to the shop common event.

This is very basic and eventually when I have the full version of Ace I will update this to show a more advanced multiscript version of this and maybe post a demo.

So I read Cassandra Clare’s newest book Clockwork Prince recently and I thought I would give it a review.

This is the second book of her Infernal Devices series, which is prequel to her Mortal Instruments series a series that I highly recommend.

Set in Victorian London, this book continues the story of Tessa Gray(who can transform into anybody if she can get an object they owned) and the shadowhunters who have sworn to protect her from the mysterious and dangerous Magister.

In this entry Tessa’s affections are torn between Will Herondale and his parabati (spiritual blood brother) James “Jem” Carstairs.

Will is a young, reckless, and handsome shadowhunter that seems to push everyone away, but can’t seem to stay away from Tessa.

Jem is a young silver haired boy who is kind to everyone and is the only one who seems to understand Will. He also happens to be dying.

They both love Tessa, but Will cannot express his love for her because of a terrible curse and although she cares for Jem she sees him more as a friend through most of the book.

Clares take on werewolves (though the gay werewolf was a first for me), faeries, and vampires is fairly typical, but her version of warlocks was new to me and the main warlock we see, Magnus Bane, is one of my favorite characters (he is also in the Mortal Instruments series). The demons are all very interesting and she uses a wide variety. The automatons are creepy and as the main foes vary enough to keep you from being bored.

She goes into depth when it comes to the shadowhunters. Shadowhunters are humans infused with angels blood who use runes they either draw or tattoo on their bodies to increase strength, speed, healing abilities, etc. The can also draw the runes on inanimate objects for various effects. The shadowhunters society is explained to the reader with great detail including their politics, laws, history, and customs. They primarily fight demons, but if the other supernaturals violate the law they will hunt them as well. Their society is fairly equitable with men and women both being fighters and race doesn’t seem to be an issue, but the of course have their own unique prejudices.

The world Clare creates is very detailed and beautifully described. If your looking for an action packed story with plenty of intrigue and well written characters this is the series to read. This series also has some particularly steamy moments and the focus is more on how sexy the boys are and not on the girls so much which is a nice change of pace even though I don’t care for sexy boys much myself.

You don’t need to read the Mortal Instruments series (which is set in modern times) to know what’s going on, but some of the hidden references will be lost on you.

Gosh I thought I would have trouble writing enough to warrant a post and it seems I’ve gone on forever instead.

The top row is for Closet Ace’s Vinekiller battlers which can be found under the Battler section Nature. Note: the first one is the RTP with no edits and is only included for ease of use.

The bottom row is the RTP and recolored RTP of the Plant battler as smaller characters to get a sense of scale as compared to Vine Killer. The recolors can be achieved by using the hue function in the battler selection window of the database.

The top row’s first image (which is the RTP image) can be used for Closet Ace’s Lesser Daemon 1 and 3 and the second one is for Lesser Daemon 2 which are at the above link under the Battler Section Satan. The third image is a recolor to better suit the RTP Gargoyle (IMO) and the fourth is resized and recolored to go with the Imp battler from the RTP.

The bottom row is for the Succubus battler in the RTP the sprites included with the RTP for the Succubus just didn’t look right to me and I think it’s better. The second and third ones are for when you change the hue in the battler selection window of the database.

So I’ve been playing Kirby: Return to Dreamland on the Wii with the kids a lot lately.

I really enjoy this game because it’s quite frankly not too hard for my kids, but has enough challenges for me to not be completely bored while playing with them. My kids are 5 and 6 years old and although they are pretty good at platformers this is still a hard balance to achieve.

This game is really colorful which helps keep the kids attention. The music is fun and it has really simple controls for doing really fantastic looking moves that are generally useful and not just for flash (although the super copy abilities are pretty flashy). Being a four player game we don’t have to take turns which makes it a hell of a lot more fun.

There are some annoying things about this game. If the other players get to far away from player one then they get sucked back to them which can be useful at times, but is really annoying at other times. The biggest flaw I’ve seen is that when player one dies you have to restart the area of the stage which wouldn’t be all bad, but since you also share lives, if the other players use up all your lives you have the start the stage over completely. This is off-set by the other players effectively having unlimited lives after you have no extra guys remaining. Once again sometimes that’s useful, but most of the time it is kind of annoying.

If you have younger kids I would recommend this game, but if you’re kids are older then you might want to pick up something like New Super Mario Bros. Wii or Rayman Origins.

So this is my first attempt at a blog. I’ve never really been an avid reader of blogs until recently so for me this is all very new.

My goal is to start posting the ways I’ve come up with to use RPG Maker scripts (especially the new ones for Ace) in ways that may have not been the intention of the script or how I combine the functionality of various scripts together to make an idea work.

Also I want to discuss whatever book, video game, or manga I happen to be enjoying at the moment.